Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Strike Stuff

Overall I can't complain too much about how bad my life is because of the transit strike. I live 4 blocks from the Botanical Gardens Metro North station, which will get me to 42nd street. At 42nd street NYU is running a commuter shuttle to help students and employees get where they need to go. Yesterday I was 2 hours late but the kids had a two hour delay in their school opening so I figured that was fine. I got to work just about as quickly as a regular day. So Rinaldo, Tisha and I left at 5:30 to get on a shuttle back uptown. I was expecting a slighter longer trip but nothing too bad.

Yeah, right...

To paraphrase that great thinker Riley [Escobar] Freeman the scene at Grand Central station last night was like, "getting to heaven and finding out that God smokes crack":

The camera phone picture sucks but that was when I was just about at the front of the line. You can only imagine how long it actually was. They had all the Bronx people herded behind these gates for the Bronx shuttles that they were running. The joke is Tisha got on a train as soon as we got there, since all roads lead to Harlem, sorry I mean all trains stop at 125th Street. Once she was happily sitting on her train she heard the announcement that in fact that train was also going to our stop in the Bronx. So why weren't we told of that option? To keep us from sullying the Westchester commuters? I don't know but it was a bit of a tinderbox toward the end. I will say that the Metro North cops and employees were doing a very good job of keeping heads cool and everything as organized as possible.

added later:My co-worker Gary told me that he heard on the news that they shut the doors to Grand Central around the time I was there. They could not let one more person in, it was that bad.

All my gifts are done except for the Irish Hiking Scarf. I looked at it on the train this morning and thought, "wow, I think I can finish this by tonight" which would be ideal since I really want to give it a good blocking. When I got to work I measured it and it was a whopping 27 inches. Yeah a little over 2 feet. This is a gift for Avery's teacher and has to be given on Friday.

I am so screwed...

I wanted to say something deep and meaninful about the Winter Solstice but Cate did it so much better than I ever could.